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TESTIMONY OF THE IDAHO WATER USERS ASSOCIATION, INC. 

 September 24, 1993 

 Page 3 



damaging. It would appear to us that even the opponents of reser>'oir 

 drawdown in Washington and Oregon have recognized this fact since they 

 have urged that the river velocity should be increased by using Idaho 

 water. Simple hydrology and basic mathematics will show that unless the 

 four reservoirs on the lower Snake River are drawn down well below minimum 

 operating pool (MOP), all the water in Idaho will not increase the river 

 velocity or decrease the water particle travel time a significant amount 

 nor will it cause the river to even approach the free flowing stream 

 velocity that existed before construction of the dams. Salmon proponents 

 claim we need 140,000 cfs equivalent flow at lower Granite Dam to assist 

 downstream migration. Idaho has eight million acre feel of water in 

 storage in the Snake River Basin but it would require approximately 8-12 

 million acre feet of water from Idaho with full reservoir pools to create 

 a velocity equal to a 140,000 cubic feet per second necessary. It is 

 obvious, even to the laymen, that flow augmentation is totally inadequate 

 to effectively increase water velocity and decrease water particle travel 

 time to the extent necessary to cause salmon recovery. 



Over the last three years, however, Idaho water users have pro 'ided 

 water in the spirit of cooperation and in an effort to keep the salmon 

 runs viable. In 1991, 850,000acrefeetof water were sent down river. 

 In 1992, 1,747,000 acre feet and to date in 1993, 1,635,000 acre feet have 

 been sent downriver as shaped water flows. Of this water, 932,000 acre 

 feet was shaped by Idaho Power Company at Brownlee Dam from reservoirs on 

 the upper Snake River system. Accordingly, if the advocates of flow 

 augmentation are correct, we should see some sort of positive biological 

 effect from this effort. We see none. The National Marine Fisheries 

 Service, state fish and game departments and others cannot show any 

 effective increase in salmon returns due to flow augmentation nor are they 

 prepared to assert that flow augmentation has accomplished anything 

 positive. In addition to the water released over the last three years, of 

 course, the Northwest Power Planning Council water budget has been in 

 effect and while those targets have not been met, there has been water 

 shaping and flow augmentation since the mid 80's. Again, there does not 

 appear to be any positive biological benefit since the salmon runs 

 continue to decline. To rely on flow augmentation as a cornerstone of 

 salmon recovery is, at best, faulty science and, at worst, political 

 grandstanding. 



The existing Council plan supports flow augmentation in an expanded 

 water budget and in addition proposes to obtain an additional one million 

 acre feet of water from Idaho through conservation and other means. This 

 position demonstrates an absolute ignorance of a hydrologic systems in the 

 Snake River Basin. Often data published by the U.S. Geological Survey are 

 used to claim that Idaho irrigators are using water wastefully. The often 

 quoted 1987 Water Data for Idaho , published by the U.S. Geological Survey, 

 indicated that approximately 1 . 1 million acres of land was flood irrigated 

 in the Snake River basin using a diversion rate of seven (7) acre feet per 



